#consider this a discussion with myself

[the-shifting-long]

one fascinating thing about the Princesses is how often they echo the mindset that motivates the Shifting Mound.

Shifty/Felina is someone who is convinced that she is what she is, that the totality of her being is something that cannot be changed or denied. There is no compromise, in part because there is nothing to compromise-she simply is, you simply are, and this is how things are.

Communicating with her using words pre and post awakening is difficult-words are difficult for her. They never quite weave into what she wishes to say. She often resorts to flowery metaphors, unable to use imprecise and unnuanced language to say the things she wants to say. When frustrated by the player or by this issue of communication, she often falls back on how there is no constant, there is no center, everything exists in relation to everything it isn't and vice versa, "nothing" is a concept that exists because there's "something", and how can we even begin to talk about the inherently contradictory, multifaceted aspects of our existence when language cannot account for it?

Precisely because she dislikes words, and feels she has to fall back on metaphor for them to have any meaning, she values action more than anything-more specifically, she values conflicts. She values the ins and outs, the victories and defeats, things ending and breaking only to be reborn. This also ties into the Shifting Mound as a force of entropy, change, and death-she is what she is, viewing death and fear and pain and change as necessary parts of the world, and what's needed to improve yourself.

She loves it so much, loves the player so much, finds it so romantic, that she often refers to it as a dance. Conflict as music. Something beautiful and timeless to be adored and made over and over and over again in a billion different styles across a billion different times and places.

This is all basic Shifting Mound analysis, and it's important for establishing a baseline of Who She Is (without getting into what her Heart versions say, and why there's incongruence there-that's a different post! we can definitely go deeper) Because...every single one of her vessels reflects one or more of these aspects of Felina.

The Damsel line is all about TSM's connection and adoration of the player, how she loves the player even at their very worst and comes up with the most loving poems for the most horrifying things. Even when killed, she decides to return the favor with a smile and with your hand in hers. Damsel's deconstruction refers to the end of the world as "unleashing unceasing entropy upon all creation", Happily Ever After wants nothing more than to leave and dance, and even wears TSM's crown and takes similar poses to the dance Felina has with the player in the Leave ending.

Prisoner is once again about the failure of words, being able to communicate without them, or find hidden meanings. So much of Cage involves both Princess and Voices having literal understandings of the situation, and twisting it for their own ends, along with the natural fall into conflict-and that conflict being beautiful. Drowned Grey is beyond words, instead letting her own corpse's appearance and blank stare speak for her. She's also got this idea of destruction as something necessary-she's perfectly fine, even happy, being nothing but a head and losing her body completely. When that doesn't work, the cabin breaks down on its own, and its destruction is unambiguously a good thing.

Razor's a blatantly more meta route where you manifest a knife for your enemy to kill you with. Razor in both forms is about going through an endless stream of trials until you are about to embrace godhood, either being pushed into another very romantic conflict-the ebb and flow-or rising about it to break her against yourself. It's a beautiful parallel to Shifty herself, this unstoppable force that will never change, and where the relationship only changes because you're able to rise against it.

The Nightmare is about how she simply is what she is, and she can't change that. Fear and death and horror are necessary things to keep the world running. Noteably, Nightmare doesn't want to end the world so much as "hold it in her hands and squeeze." Nightmare doesn't see bringing death and destruction and most importantly, fear as an ending, but a new beginning, and an inevitable part of her nature, just like her fully-awakened self.

Spectre is one of the routes that plays a lot with perception-you think she's dead, so she is, and in Princess and the Dragon, she is both dead and alive until the metaphorical box is opened by an outside observer, schrodinger's cat style. Like the Shifting Mound, she personally chooses to see the best in the player until proven otherwise, and even then, is inclined to embrace violence as a natural part of their relationship if pushed down Wraith or the Stenciled version of Princess and the Dragon. Shifty, Damsel, and Spectre want nothing more than to be with you.

And Tower wants nothing more than to be with you, too...as a goddess while you sit by her side as a pet, or at best, a priest. The Tower princesses are arguably the ones that get closest to godhood, to being what the Shifting Mound and therefore all of the Princesses are. They're held back by their inability to treat the player as an equal, and there's definitely an argument to made for Felina's own arrogance and assumption that she can never be wrong, so you must concede to her. Tower and Apotheosis in particular are delighted by the player's acts of resistance, much in the same way the Shifting Mound gets excited when you're able to successfully resist her. In terms of personality, I'd argue this line shares TSM's general attitude and behavior the most.*

*Tower-Fury is different from the rest of her line in a lot of ways, such as actively disliking the player's resistance, but keeps the divine arrogance even when she believes it's been denied to her, and is genuinely upset it has been much in the same way a certain pre-awakened someone doesn't take kindly to the Oblivion paths.

The Adversary line, similarly to Tower and Razor, once more involves that core belief of conflict between the two of you specifically leading to greater and greater heights. If the Tower reflects TSM's overall attitude, Advy is a reflection of what TSM tries to get at with metaphor-Adversary in all of her forms finds no use in words, only purpose in action, but will still literally cry from joy if this action is compared to a song written in blood. Both Eye of the Needle and Advy-Fury share this trait, with Advy-Fury deriding words as things that "aren't music. They aren't dance. They aren't feeling." TSM shuts down arguments that nitpick her language much in the same way the Adversaries are uninterested in language period, while also using the same language Of song and dance and music. And, while ambiguous, you could say the Leave ending, the endless joy of being with TSM as the world dies and is reborn over and over, presents a similar dynamic to the end of Adversary, where the two of you fight each other over and over with such fervent passion death itself no longer sits on your shoulders...

Stranger's so meta and so obviously a mini-Shifty, it almost feels like a waste to talk about how she's Shifty. A billion realities colliding into one, parts of them dead, parts that don't fit...even pre-awakened TSM says she's in the shape of her, but is unable to hold everything she is.

Witch brings our favorite dance metaphor back right alongside stories about love, change, and growth. While the Witch herself is a wretched little thing, in her own words, she contains so much potential to become something beyond that. Witch, Nightmare, and Razor are all some of the more playful sides of TSM. I feel like things get really interesting in Witch's chapter 3s, ESPECIALLY the Wild.

That's one where you and the princess are literally merged together, right where she believes you belong, and are so, so close to getting everything she wants before the nature of the construct and TSM kick in and the walls close. I can't do a playthrough where I intend to leave with TSM without getting the Networked Wild as a vessel-it just feels that important to Felina as a character, to see what her pre-awakened self describes as a literal shadow of herself, a much more vulnerable version, and for her to be right there...while Tower/Apo feels closest in terms of godhood and attitude, and Stranger feels closet in terms of what she physically is and experiences, Wild feels as though she's the most similar to TSM's inner heart and feelings, right down to the buried parts of herself that still want to get violent.

And then there's Beast/Den. You've probably heard this one from Nightmare and Razor before, get ready to here it from the lion's mouth this time: I am what I am, fledgling. There is no reasoning with that. Adversary says she's beyond words while still happy to use them-that's more than fine, TSM loves poetry despite (or perhaps because?) of her frustrations with language. Den literally gets to the point where she's beyond words. This is a princess who doesn't care for the pretenses that she's a normal, human, mortal being anymore, a princess who embraces everything she is and wants, and who will always be happy to show you exactly what she means...through biting you biting you biting you biting you biting you saving you from a collapsing tunnel biting you <3 Once more we see that repeating motif of merging with the princess, being one with her. Once more we see how badly the Shifting Mound wants to be with us, by any means possible, through the lens of her vessels.

Anyways I think it's really neat how these Princesses are all full-fledged and deep, nuanced characters in and of itself while still contributing to the gestalt of another woman who is made of all of them, and helping to inform her characterization as much as their own. It's like Slay the Princess is insanely well-written and good or something.

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

Randomly thinking about “tolerate it” (narrator voice: it was not random) and how under the cloak of fiction it is ostensibly inspired by works like “Rebecca” (which Taylor said she read during the 2020 lockdowns I believe?), with the line of “you’re so much older and wiser” indicating that the speaker is significantly younger and inexperienced compared to the person she’s speaking to and a pretty direct reference to the plot of the book.

But I saw something somewhere once that stuck with me about how it might not be referring to relative age between the characters but chronological age as in the passage of time in a relationship. And that made me think about how in a contemporary context, it might not necessarily be referencing an actual age gap between the two characters, but rather a sarcastic or cynical response to the man’s claims that he has matured (“you’re so much older and wiser [than you were before/than you were when we met/etc.]”), which then made me think about that line in relation to the woman. And that it could be taken like, “you act like you’ve matured so much in our time together and like you know everything, while I’m supposedly still stuck as the girl I was when we first met.”

Which then made me think of the “right where you left me” of it all and did you ever hear about the girl who got frozen time went on for everyone else she won’t know it and the bit in Miss Americana where she talks about how celebrities get frozen at the age at which they got famous, and how she’s had to play catch up in a lot of ways not just in her emotional growth but kind of in general. (Which also made me wonder if she’s ever been called out for immaturity/lack of curiosity/lack of education about things in her life…)

Which then made me think about the rest of the song, and @taylortruther’s posts yesterday about “seven” and “Daylight” and the way Taylor idealizes her youth yet contrasts it with an almost sinister reality in its wake, and the line, “I sit by the door like I’m just a kid,” because the discussion raised that her relationship let her recapture some of the childlike joy and wonder she’d lost. So this line is a double-edged sword: the speaker sits by the door with childlike hope that the person will come home and cherish her, but on the darker side, feels like the child dealing with the monsters she doesn’t have names for yet and the feelings of isolation she felt as she aged.

I’m not saying the song is necessarily autobiographical; like most of the songs on folkmore, it’s clearly a fictionalized story based on media she’d consumed and created, but we know a lot of the fictional songs were infused with her own feelings and experiences and… This idea swirling in my head picked up steam and now I kind of can’t stop thinking about it. Sorry but I’m a little obsessed now.

Like maybe it might start to shed light on why she identified so strongly with the novel in the first place…

[wackywatchdotcom]

What do you think Queenie was like when she was around? What do you think about the HC of her potentially being on the spectrum?

i dont have a super concrete idea, but i do imagine, true to kingers word, that she was very funny and creative!!!

ive mentioned it before but i dont think she was actually an entomologist- just someone invested in it! (the only way i could see her being an entomologist is if, for some reason, c&a wanted an entomologist on board for... something? but thats a very biological field so i dont think this is the case). at most i think shed worked related jobs in the distant past, but nothing recquiring a degree in the field

despite this i do think she was just as weird as entomologists are. because theyre all weird and its great. every entomologist or person DEEPLY dedicated to entomology ive ever met has been eccentric in some way. i think she was like this. what this entails is ambiguous

(id use myself as a source but i think im closer to kinger in terms of knowledge on entomology, in that its above standard knowledge of insects but still not nearly as much as an actual entomologist has)

also i think she was bad at completely dialing down talk about insects. i think shed try but as she talks itd gradually veer right back into just her saying her own thoughts, complete with abbreviations and ento terms that no one else but her knows

she was definitely very funny and probably in like. a very goofy way. i think she was generally pretty composed but had a very lighthearted sense of humor. i think with her general like... demeanor of Knowing What Shes Doing that shed just Say Things that would catch people off guard in a very silly way

in terms of creativity, i dont imagine she was an artist (or if she was i think it was a recent skill she was learning- maybe gangle was teaching her...) but i do imagine she had a very good ability to problem-solve and generally had a really good grasp on methods of doing things. creative is the best way to put it again. she was clever!!

i do think she was probably the more grounded of the two, less jumpy and more prone to thinking about the situation the two were in (what with how kingers personality ties into his chess piece being a king, i like the idea that hers ties in too). it gave her more of a tendency to really think about it all which contributed to her abstraction :(

i dont think she waas TOOOO much more serious than kinger though... i think they were both huge goofballs and it was sweet

tbqh my idea of her is ALSO influenced by my favorite tadc fic that i read a few weeks back and am still obsessed with (metamorphosis by beepborpdoodledorp!! its REALY good). i like to imagine she was like how she is in this!!!!

in terms of her being autistic i am ALWAYS a fan of interpretting characters as autistic. i looove the idea of entomology being a special interest of hers (especially bc i can certainly relate), and even w the minimal knowledge we have of her i think it works really well. i think i could come up with more elaborate details abt this other than the surface level stuff but id need to think on it more...

(i myself try to avoid hcing a character as autistic and then just making it about having special interests since thats only one facet ofc, though w the little info we have on her its one of the easiest things to point to... i would love to have more ideas for it)

though, i know its implied to be an abstraction thing but i DO like the idea that she found bright lights overstimulating. i could see her finding MOST things in the circus overstimulating. if she were around to meet pomni i think theyd be able to connect over that (considering i hc pomni as autistic too but i dont wanna derail this w rambling abt that HAHA). the humor thing may have created strange moments though since i think pomni has very little sense of humor- or at the very least, a highly specific one that is hard to hit. maybe queenie could have managed to make her laugh...

either way i REALLY like the idea. autism entomology combo WIN!!!!!

[angelic-tongues]

Lesbians- Can I honestly ask how you feel about bisexuals interacting with you?

[wardensantoineandevka]

I see there's posts floating around directly and blatantly arguing against mine (same wording) by completely misunderstanding what I said. I'm fucking BACK, babey. Should've bought some hay-scented fragrance while I was at Sephora today, because I am once again your strawman!

[kingofanemptyworld]

(apparently) controversial opinion but I don’t think being into this:

makes you a Monsterfucker™️. maybe, maybe, Monsterfucker Lite™️ because there’s a chance of grimmjow trying to rip your intestines out with his teeth.

for me, personally, you gotta be into something more like this:

to really qualify.

[raggedyannedoll]

hey Welcome Home community what are our thoughts on the fact that Wally, Julie, and Frank's neighborhood pages say the word "handler" instead of "puppeteer"?

the only commonality between the three of them is that they only require one puppeteer (as opposed to multiple, as i'll show with the other neighbors) -- so i suppose the phrasing could just be due to that? and while i have found a couple of instances in real life where the world "handler" is used in reference to puppeteering, it just seems oddly specific. why not say "operated by one puppeteer", to match the rest of the neighbors?

also?? these sentences are all exactly the same, with just their names switched out???

and despite details like Frank's rotating head mechanism, there's no mention of what actual type of puppet each of them are. Wally's page talks more about Home than it does about him -- but we technically know he's (presumably???) a hand-rod puppet because of the real life Wally puppet. Julie's page says absolutely nothing about her puppet aside from the final detail about the handler.

the only exception to both of these words is Poppy, whose section describes her puppet type (being a walk around puppet), but doesn't mention the amount of puppeteers needed to operate her. although i suppose this could be due to. the fact that she has no live-hand counterpart and we're just meant to make inferences

[venusiinfurss]

guys big news my brain told me that if i think about It one more time than It will stop hurting

[cosmik-homo]

Absolute Pacifism may not be your cup of tea, and it is far from- universally effective or even universally morally correct. But it's a perfectly respectable and reasonable personal lifestyle that you're batting for the wrong team if you're knocking down, and more importantly- it's a tool. It's a very, very powerful thought-stopping-stopping tool. Having a clean clear line that one won't cross is vitally important when dealing with such emotional matters as Danger and Pain and handling such important irreversible decisions as life or death. When you refuse to believe in the death-deservance of the most vile possible person a lot of propaganda stops working on you. But also. Everyone and their mother thinks they only believe in or deploy extreme violence as a Last Resort Solution.

Absolute pacifism tells us Nah. You're not there yet. Laster resort than this. Wait and try again. Taking a great risk on the offchance of unlikely kindness is a choice. losing is a choice. dying is a choice. you are not yet at the bottom of the ladder. Do you really need violence as much as you think? What is it's price?

I'm not an Absolute Pacifist. I do think Sometimes some harm can be important to disrupt systems of evil. But I also eye with deep, deep suspicion anyone who lacks patiance or disparages personal decision on this spectrum. Each according to his means etc- if you don't see well a comrade that refuses any violent actions and can't imagine Anything else useful or helpful they can do, you're probably far too focused on your violence to offer useful solutions.

[un-merle]

The good thing about being a translator by day and a hobbyist artist by night is I get to be angry about genAI 100% of the time.

[wackywatchdotcom]

honestly i dont really talk about caine all too much, i talk about pomni a lot and then ill talk abt ragatha a lot and then i also talk about gangle and kinger and it generally cycles between them (i draw jax a lot but it has to do w him just being fun to draw- i need to talk about zooble MORE bc they were one of the first parts of the show that got me invested)- i love the entire main cast but some of them i talk abt more and i feel like caine is not a common one i discuss. but i really really like his character even if i dont talk about him so much

[dxxtruction]

I entirely agree that ‘Loumand are incompatible because they’re both bottoms’ is inane bullshit. But I think that part when Louis said they were in their proper roles was meant to be unreliable?

It was a set up for the pay off of Armand de Gaslighter. They were talking about having a ‘dreamy kind of balance’ they hadn’t achieved. But they were selling it hard to Daniel to sell the perfect romance.

Respectfully, I just sort of disagree?

Not that they weren't playing it up, or there's nothing to question there, but in that it could've possibly been all or entirely performative.

That they had proper roles (Meant: that Louis likes the roles) and moments of dreamy romance (especially in Paris) that were by all means true does not undermine the other facts of how Armand abused him. In fact, I find this episode does a good job at displaying how they are in conversation with one another as opposed to undermining the truths of there being these things to find good about the relationship. These real moments, and facts, about the relationship that Louis finds nice, and ideal, conceal, and make Louis look past, the abuse. This episode very heavily alluding to there having been make up sex before this more or less proves my point, that utilization of the good things in this relationship does a lot of heavy lifting in making Louis and Armand able move past and reestablish things (their dynamic is used like this again later in the episode when Louis saves Daniel). That they ever had a love to be desired is a repeating truth aiding a lie, and complicated by abuse, not another lie stacked together with all others, and entirely separate from it. This being true, again, doesn't make the lies not lies, the abuse not true, it just complicates them, and even manages them.

I find that they were ever truly happy and understanding of one another, or at the least trying to get back there, makes him not overly question his choice in Armand, but continue to choose him over and over. This 'dreamy romance' line is phrased in a way specifically alluding to this - as dreamy as it really was Armand was lying to him at that time about the trail that has yet to have happened, keeping that from him, and Louis is avoiding the uncomfortable other nature of this. And, for as far as Louis knows at the beginning of this episode, this was the only major instance of this.

In other words, they just aren't lies being fed to Daniel, but only part of the much wider much more complicated truth:

Louis liked and still likes the roles and the dreamy romance they can and had often had, because it's what genuinely works and is to like in that relationship, but both of these things come with a lot of other unaddressed, routinely avoided, and even concealed, baggage. These further truths. Abuses, facts of when it doesn't work, and otherwise. That actually it's never been just one or the other simple answer to say but - more complicatedly - both the good and bad in a cyclical conversation with one another.

So to me as well this episode is for getting Louis to seriously reconsider everything with that context, and that Armand could be more than he has seemed. He has been giving Armand way too much credit and affordance for things, even when he's repeating all his same mistakes, and from here on is far less forgiving of it. He's more seeing to the more complicated truth, and addressing that wider conversation he's been avoiding. But even still it doesn't then mean all these things to like, or having liked if you want to look at it this way instead, suddenly never were to begin with. Or that they were just lies, and that they simply had no truth to them. It's just that, again, further interrogation of other harsher truths, with these softer memories, reveal much more can be said of it.

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

i run the risk of sounding like a #fakefan here, but i've never lied to you before and i do not intend to start now:

i've got 2 episodes left of s4 and i know it is beloved by fans... but i'm having such a hard time with the Unrelenting Sadness. i feel like i'm tuning into scully torture time each evening.

[call-me-copycat]

i'm so sorry about what you're going through!! i know what it's like to be a "gifted" kid and suddenly not be able to pass everything so easily, it's a pretty terrible feeling (◞‸◟；)

i sincerely hope you get through this, i have no doubt it will all work out in the end, so please take care!! <2

Thank you for your support, definitely need it right now (⁠;⁠ŏ⁠﹏⁠ŏ⁠)

It's not technically the worst case scenario since I still have some time before the semester ends, but I still definitely need to learn how to cope with so much more to handle (and also how to deal with failure/rejection)

I'm going to try to discuss with a professor or advisor, but I can only go from there >⁠.⁠<

Thanks again for being here :⁠-⁠)

[brains-out-rn]

I don't like debating much(unless necessary for the sake of my own humanity) but sometimes it can be really Really fun specifically if it's about something that has absolutely no real weight to it(and yet if you were a spectator it might cause some concern for whatever reason)

for example: would you rather be threatened(physically mentally or emotionally take your pick) by a can of corn or a cob of corn?

Me personally I'd pick cob for a few reasons

1. I can outlast it(probably)

Fresh corn will eventually rot and decay but have you seen how long canned stuff can last unopened before it looks slightly different from new stuff??

2. Cans are made of metal not vegetable flesh

While a corn cob has its core that's not metal. Ever dropped a can? Might get a dent. If you have a good kick then you might survive but you will probably hurt your foot. Ever dropped corn? If it had it outer leaves and hair it might have stood a chance but if it didn't then bits of corn go everywhere

3. Actually fighting if needed

I feel like I could survive a fight with a sentient can but a sentient cob just seems less likely to hurt

However there are some things might change my decision

Like issue one which is how the corn moves because if the cob is fresh with hair and leaves and can move all the little hairs individually and can move the leaves then I'd probably choose the can because at that point I feel like it's less of "how would i survive with the least amount of bruising" and more of "how would I rather die but with a chance of surviving" and in my opinion i think blunt force trauma would be better then a slow death of strangulation via a sentient corns hair plus I do think I'd have a chance against a can of corn

Another issue is if it was mentally or emotionally I'd probably go with the can bc I feel like it would be easier for to rationalize it as ridiculous to be threatened by a can of corn then a cob for some reason

Like a cob is ridiculous to the point that I'd just accept it as making sense for that to happen?

a can is like "why am I listening to the can of corn. I literally own a can opener." But a cob is more like "if I were to try and deal with you in the traditional way of dealing with corn that would mean a pot and water and time and-"

Plus idk why but I feel like a cob would be less mean with its words. I can't explain it I just think cob would just go straight to physical threats instead of emotional ones but a can would stare at you menacingly making you question yourself and just judging you